Hurricane Rita

[PhillyGirl]

Hurricane Rita now a Category 2 hurricane with top sustained winds of 100 mph, according to National Hurricane Center.

The path of this stands like this right now..but like Katrina, it could turn and head dead on to the Gulf coast:

With Rita projected to strengthen to a Category 3 storm as it moves into the Gulf, concerns went beyond the Sunshine State.

In Galveston, Texas, a city flattened by a hurricane in 1900, officials called Tuesday for a voluntary evacuation, according to The Associated Press. (Full story)

And in New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin postponed a planned return of residents to the city and ordered those who had already returned to leave, because of the threat posed by Rita.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco urged residents of southwestern Louisiana to be ready to evacuate on short notice. And because Rita could hit Texas, which already has taken in tens of thousands of Louisiana residents after Katrina, she urged them to go north instead of west. (Full story)

The latest five-day forecast from the National Hurricane Center has the storm making landfall near Galveston on late Friday or early Saturday. However, because of the erratic nature of hurricane movements, forecasters issued a "cone of probability" which showed the potential path of the storm could vary from northern Mexico to southeast Louisiana.

I sure hope this thing steers clear of the Katrina hit areas. I can't even imagine a Cat 3 hitting that area right now.

[Diomedes]

Oh pshaw.  I'm rooting for Rita to wrap up the job Katrina almost finished and just wash New Orleans off the face of the earth for good.

[rjs246]

Mother Nature is a jerk.

[General_Failure]

Yeah, but she's hot.

[rjs246]

Eh, way too old for my taste. Talks way too much too.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Why can't these things hit California? But only during major Earthquakes. The we could all go swimming down in Arizona Bay.....

[T_Section224]

i heart mother nature

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

FYI:  Houston/etc is also the "gulf coast".

[rjs246]

I can't wait for them to have to evacuate the evacuees. Ironies galore!

[T_Section224]

i nominate rjs to come up with the evacuation plan for the evacuees.

[mussa]

{arnold voice}build giant meat grinder...lead them into smelly tunnel of crunchy death(arnold voice}

[General_Failure]

No more GWAR shows for mussa.

[mussa]

ewww GWAR

[Rome]

We're about 400 miles north of Key West and we just got slammed with a brief outer-outer rain band from Rita.

It was sunny and then all of a sudden - bam - the ish came off the ocean and slammed us for about 15 minutes.  Now it's calm again.

[MURP]

Eh, way too old for my taste. Talks way too much too.

maybe Rome would take her on a date.